Chapter Text
The Wheelers' basement is full of people.
Robin is sitting on the edge of the work table, with her arms crossed so hard that her fingers are numb. It is not allowed to release them. Steve walks back and forth, running a hand through his hair over and over again, as if the movement could order something in his head. Dustin and Lucas are sitting on the floor, surrounded by sheets torn from Nancy's notebook. Erica watches from a corner, with her arms crossed, her brow frowning and her eyes attentive. Murray mutters theories that no one asked him. Holly is sitting next to Karen, with her legs gathered against her chest.
Karen holds the notebook.
Nancy's notebook.
Robin can't stop looking at it. Recognize the small and tight print. The arrows that connect ideas. The exclamation marks written with anger. She recognizes Nancy there more than in any memory.
"This is all we know," Robin finally says, breaking the silence. "And even so... it's not enough."
Karen turns the pages slowly, as if each leaf could cut her.
"I knew she was up to something, but she has always been like that, always with half-truths," she says, frustrated.
Holly purses her lips before speaking.
"she told me a few things. I think it was just because she didn't want me to worry. I believed that all disappearances were for..."
"Mr. Whatsit" Mike Finishes. "She never said anything to me."
"You were at school," Robin replies. "We were all dealing with our affairs, and we decided to ignore what was happening here because..." Sigh.
"Because we didn't want to relive what has already happened. We didn't want to believe it was something serious. When the possibility that Vecna was behind everything was ruled out, we stopped investigating, asking questions." Steve adds.
"But that never stopped Nancy." Says Dustin.
Robin swallows’
"Nancy had been researching the lab for weeks," she continues. "Not directly. First it was routine. Schedules. The first thing that caught her attention were the trucks that Murray mentioned to him. Then she began to notice strange things." Point to the notebook. "People who should have nothing to do in an abandoned laboratory at night."
Karen turns the notebook towards them. On the last page, written in blue ink, firm, unmistakable:
PLATE: HAW-317
The silence becomes thick. Nancy was close to discovering something big, and that, surely, had put her in the crosshairs again.
"Mike called Hopper," Steve finally says. "He's trying to track down the patrol from outside Hawkins."
"Do you think Nancy... entered the laboratory alone?" Dustin asks, in a low, insecure voice.
The question is heavy. A part of Robin knows that Nancy would be able to risk her life to get to the truth, but another, lands her in the conversation of the previous day before falling asleep.
"She's impulsive," Lucas says slowly. "It has always been. When she thinks she has the answer, she doesn't wait."
Robin grits her teeth.
"Yes," she says. "But not that way. Not this time." She looks up, determined. "I talked to her yesterday. She told me that she was tired of doing it alone. That she was willing to accept help." she pauses. "And that... that's not easy for Nance."
Holly nods.
"She promised me," she says. "she said she would come back. And Nancy doesn't break promises."
Robin closes her eyes for a second. Reconstruct the scene. The conversation. Nancy's tone. The way she spoke, more tired than brave, or a mixture of both with a desperate desire to find answers.
"If she didn't go in alone," she says slowly, "then someone took her off the board first."
The radio sizzles. Hopper's voice arrives distorted, distant.
"I found something. The patrol belongs to a recruit. Less than six months in the force. Name: Harold Rose."
The air becomes dense. It's not a meaningful name, not yet. Dustin, Lucas and Erica propose to go to the library to further investigate the names written in the notebook. Everyone else starts looking for more places to fit the pieces of the big puzzle that Nancy left messy. Then Robin remembers.
"Rose..." she murmurs. "General Rose, Steve"
"Shit, do you think...?"
Karen pales. She knows something happened. With Nancy, with General Rose, with Hearth & Home. She knows that there were murders, and that Nancy was the one who helped the police arrest General Rose and his conspiracy. The rest of the group knows practically the same as Karen; what The Hawkins Post published the next day.
"What happened that day, Robin?" She asks, barely audible.
Robin straightens up. She didn't want to do it like that. Not in front of everyone. Not in front of Karen and Holly. But there's no turning back.
"When I found Nancy that night," she says, "she was on the floor. Cold. Barely conscious." Take a deep breath. "She had discovered the truth. That what was making Hawkins sick was not an accident."
Everyone looks at her. Karen's face pales even more.
"It was an association," she continues. "A construction agency and a pharmaceutical company. Both linked to the Rose family. They were trying to get rid of dangerous chemicals, and what better than to do it under the crotches plates of the houses they built for the victims. No one suspected it, except Nancy. She... well, I know that Rose tried to kill her at the funeral home where Jonathan exploded the fuses in her face "
"Oh, so that's how the burn was made" Karen interrupts raising her eyebrow. Steve nods quickly.
"Eh, yes. Well, you know how she is, she fought and faced Rose, but... well, the guy released the chemical before, and by the time Nancy managed to knock him out she was already too suffocated to get out of there. I... I’d heard Nancy asking for help on the police radio, so, I went. I found her and she told me everything.”
"Did Nancy discovered everything for her own?" Ask Max.
"Yes, well, I helped a little. But the first time she put herself in danger to find the truth, I don't know why the hell she didn't want to "bother" me and left alone. She almost died in a well of toxic chemicals, and I, well, got annoyed with her. But... that's not important, the important thing is that it's too much of a coincidence that they have the same last name, right?"
"Definitely," Mike Confirms.
The last name is not a coincidence.
Nancy is in more danger than they thought.
.
Nancy watches the patrol from a distance.
She is sitting outside the car, with the notebook open on her legs. The weapon is nearby trying not to lose it if something happens, but not to show it if someone sees it. She trembles a little from the cold but not from fear or doubt. The laboratory stands in front of her like a dark, silent silhouette.
Write down the time accurately.
01:12 a.m. — the patrol enters.
Observe.
Time passes slowly. The cold sneaks into his fingers.
Minutes later, another vehicle.
01:47 a.m. — Holloway arrives.
The doctor doesn't show up. Not at the usual time. That worries her. The pattern had been persistent until that day.
Write. Underline. Surround the absence with ink, again and again, to emphasize that it is an important clue.
Almost at three in the morning, Nancy decides to return home. Close the notebook. Exhale slowly. She stands up and opens the car door. While sitting, place the gun under the seat and the notebook on her lap
And then she feels it.
She's not alone.
An arm surrounds her neck from behind. The pressure is calculated. It cuts her air just enough to disorient her, not to kill her. Which feels, in a way, more disturbing.
Nancy defends herself. She knocks blindly, tries to turn around. She desperately searches for the gun under the seat, but her hands don't reach.
The strength is drained little by little, the black dots begin to swim in her vision already blurred by the pressure of the blood in her brain.
The last thing she thinks about is not the laboratory.
It's Robin. She really didn't want to disappoint her.
Then, the darkness.
.
It was during the October meeting. One day after the panic attack and the bathtub, Robin and Nancy were on their way home.
The car was moving down the road while the sunset was all tinged orange. Robin carried an open bag of chips between her legs and, without looking, stretched out her hand to put one in Nancy's mouth.
"You don't have to do that," Nancy said, amused.
"I do," Robin replied. "Both hands on the steering wheel. Road safety. I'm a hero."
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It was different. More honest.
"What were you like as a child?" Robin asked, breaking the silence of the car.
"Normal," Nancy replied at first, and then let out a small laugh. "Well... no. I played Dungeons & Dragons with Jonathan, Mike and Will. That's what we did all the time."
"Did you play?" Robin said, genuinely surprised.
"Yes," Nancy said. "I liked it. I liked not having to be... something else. Just sit down, roll the dice and exist there."
"That explains a lot," Robin muttered. "Too much."
Nancy smiled.
"Then Lucas and Dustin joined. It was all noise, laughter, invented rules that later Mike and Will ruined because they were too straight about it. Then, Jonathan and I grew up..."
Robin waited.
"He had to work," Nancy continued. "And I was left alone in the middle of the change. They were still children, Jonathan stopped being too soon... and I didn't know where I fit in."
"And what did you do?"
"I became a stupid teenager," Nancy said bluntly. "I thought growing up was to stop feeling. Stop needing. I wanted to be perfect in all aspects of my life and I began to accept outings from boys who only wanted me to do their homework, or some, who thought I was pretty but were not interested in me talking. Steve, for example."
Robin didn't laugh this time.
"And Barb?" She asked carefully. She had never talked about her with Robin.
Nancy was slow to respond.
"Barb..." she repeated, and her voice broke immediately. "Barb was my anchor. The only one who realized that I was acting. She accepted me as I was, stubborn and curious."
She took a deep breath.
"I left her alone. I forced her to bring me to a party she didn't want to be at and then I forced her to leave alone just to sleep with a boy."
Robin squeezed the bag of potatoes.
"When he disappeared, I felt that... that something broke forever," Nancy continued, her voice trembling. "I looked for her everywhere. I didn't sleep. I didn't eat. And when no one else wanted to continue..."
"You keep looking," Robin said.
"Yes," Nancy whispered. "I entered the Upside Down."
Robin turned abruptly in the seat.
"Did you come in?"
"I went through a tree," Nancy said. "One that... shouldn't exist. We were looking for Barb and Will. No one knew what that place was yet."
Robin was silent.
"Everything was gray," Nancy continued. "Cold. Silent. And I just thought I had to find her. That, if I found her, everything would be fine again. The only thing I managed to do was scare myself. I was so close, and all I did was get scared and run, scream for help."
Her voice broke again.
"I didn't arrive on time."
Robin swallowed.
"So, you went..."
"The second," Nancy confirmed. "After Will."
Robin let out an incredulous, nervous laugh.
"Great," she said. "So, that's why when you went back there, upside down... that's why you didn't hesitate for a second, you didn't seem scared"
"I was, I was as terrified as you, but I couldn't let myself to run or get scared. Not again"
Nancy laughed, although her eyes filled with tears.
"It wasn't courage," she said. "It was my fault."
Robin shook his head.
"It was love," she corrected. "I know you weren't in love with Barb or anything like that, but she was your best friend"
Nancy was silent for a moment.
"Since then," she finally said, "I always felt that I had to be the strong one. The one that doesn't break. The one who finds the truth."
"And do you think that started there?" Robin asked.
"Yes," Nancy replied. "There I learned that, if I didn't do it, no one else would. And that's how I found Murray, in fact. Barb's parents had hired him to investigate her disappearance."
Robin took a deep breath.
"I was the opposite," she said. "Too much noise. Too many words. I was too noisy for adults and too rare for children. They always told me to lower my voice, to shut up."
"Your parents?"
"Everyone," Robin said. "My mom was desperate. My dad... just wasn't there."
Nancy frowned.
"I never had friends," Robin continued. "Only lonely adults, elderly people abandoned by their grandchildren who were grateful that someone listened to them. I was talking. A lot. I thought fast. I liked movies, riddles, weird things."
"That's still true," Nancy said with a soft smile.
"Yes," Robin admitted. "But when you're a child and you can't stop talking about a classic movie or a band that no one knows... you're not very welcome. I used to see the girls at school and say 'I really want to be her friend' or 'I wish I was like her'. And let's not forget the 'What if Nancy Wheeler and I were best friends? Wow, I would have the prettiest friend in all of Hawkins, and they would all want to be my friends"
Nancy didn't say anything. She listened, with a little sadness.
"Tammy Thompson," Robin said, with a grimace. "I thought that was love. I thought that, if I managed to make her love me, everything would fit. That's how I started my adolescence. With a forbidden love that wasn't even love"
"And wasn't it like that?"
"No," Robin replied. "It was just the beginning. The awakening. I was still trying to copy others to fit in, I wasn't myself."
"To whom?"
Robin hesitated.
"To Steve. To popular boys. Even you."
Nancy blinked.
"To me?"
"Yes," Robin said, laughing. "But you were too complicated. I never knew how to read what you felt."
Nancy smiled.
"I hid in a facade of a bitter and sarcastic girl, too disinterested in everything around her. I hid the anxiety very well, although of course, at home I exploded for compartmentalizing my entire bubbly personality"
"It must have been torture to hide so much energy," Nancy joked. Robin smiled.
"Then came the Russian message," Robin continued. "And Dustin and Steve asked me for help. And for the first time... I wasn't pretending."
"It was you," Nancy said.
"Yes," Robin nodded. "And Steve didn't leave. He was irritated, of course, like everyone else. But he stayed."
"I didn't leave either," Nancy said softly.
Robin looked at her.
"I noticed it," she said. "From the beginning. You met me directly as I was, the real Robin. And I think you hated me at first, I noticed it in the library and in your room when I touched your dancer"
"I didn't hate you, you just seemed... eccentric. The kind of energy I could never have"
"Well yes, the point is that it was also irritating to you, at first, I think. Unless it continues to be... anyway, you didn't leave"
The silence was comfortable again.
"I never felt like I had a place in the world," Robin confessed. "Even you. Of course, the package for having met them included interdimensional monsters, people with superpowers, a psychopath with superpowers trying to kill us and Nancy Wheeler using heavier weapons than her."
Nancy river.
"And yet I took it," she said. "And I accepted that Tammy was just the beginning and that Vicky was not the end."
She paused.
"And I accepted that I was in love with the girl who, as a child, I desperately wanted to be my friend."
Nancy looked at her, surprised. She didn't know how to deal with the word "in love".
Robin shrugged his shoulders.
"Maybe I never wanted you to be just my friend," she said. "Maybe I always wanted it to be you."
Nancy nodded.
"And look at us now," Robin said. "Yesterday I saw you naked and you kissed me in a bathtub. Little Robin would never believe it."
Nancy laughed so hard that she almost lost control of the steering wheel.
The memory fades as Nancy opens her eyes.
The light is dim, which helps to adapt quickly. She is sitting in a chair very similar to the one Vecna showed her in her vision, tied, this time with real ropes. The ropes burn her wrists, legs, torso, they are too tight. The room is cold, not very large and is full of medical instruments and a metal table similar to that of a morgue.
She's cold. She doesn't have a coat, they've taken it off and she's not sure if it's part of her strategy, and if it is, it's working because it's freezing. A fleeting memory of Robin saying "You have to eat more Wheeler, you don't have enough fat to keep you warm" one day while they were talking on her balcony and she was shivering with cold, appears in her mind.
There is a bucket of water on the floor, a wet towel and a series of scalpels of different sizes. Nancy doesn't know much, but she has seen enough to know that all that could be used perfectly as instruments of torture.
The door slams open, and Nancy's skin bristles when she sees the man, visibly more worn out, standing in front of her.
General Rose.
.
Late at night, the Hopper/Byers family arrives in the basement. Joyce sits next to Karen, holding her hand, trying to give enough support as a mother. Hopper doesn't waste time.
"Rose never got to prison," he says. "There were... arrangements. It was not made public because they were in charge of covering well the government's incompetence"
"Why would he come back?" Mike asks. "And why he takes children?"
Robin answers without hesitation.
"Nancy. She wanted her to go back to Hawinks"
Max frowns.
"That explains Rose, but what about Holloway? Dr. Aldrich?"
Robin has no answer. Her brain is almost fried from thinking too much.
The radio sizzles.
"We found something," Dustin says from the library. "Officer Rose is the general's nephew, that really doesn't surprise me." Everyone confirms it. "Holloway was an investor in Hearth & Home. Aldrich had no direct connection, but he knew Rose before.
Nothing fits... but everything seems connected.
"We still don't have a reason, a really strong one that they share to take the children and Nancy," Joyce says.
The group is silent for a moment, trying to process the information and sort the pieces.
Until Holly speaks.
"What if they are two groups?" She says. "With different reasons. Rose wants revenge against Nancy. The others help themselves, helping him attract her."
The basement is silent. Robin looks at her. Everyone looks at her. It's a brilliant deduction, too much to have come out of a little girl.
"So," says Robin, "Nancy is not just a victim. It's part of the goal."
And the time is already running.